Grand Slam

Thursday 26th June, Kilmore Quay again

Global cooling continues at a brisk pace. The third gale in 6 days hit us again yesterday evening and the south westerly air flow continues unabated. Now I know why there are so many midges in Scotland. They're all blown over from Ireland. Went up to the marina office this morning and Nicky said "yu'l be 'ere till Tuesday then!" Still, there are much worse places to be stranded.

Kilmore Quay marina in a nice place to be. They've a new office block occupied by Peter and Nicky who run the marina side of the harbour. The banter was tremendous when we got in with Nicky refusing to budge on giving me a discount for 3 nights or even a week but he was willing to give me a years berthing for the price of a month. We may be forced to take it! I went up this morning and Peter was making himself a coffee. He asked "have one with me". Can you imagine walking into the Port Edgar office and being offered a coffee? Evens odds on flying pigs are more likely.

The marina itself is quite small with room for around 60 boats but it is heavily used by boats on passage round the south east tip of Ireland so the berths are big. It is a bit disconcerting coming onto the pontoons though as there doesnt seem to be much room. There are two pontoons sticking out - imagine a two pronged fork - with fingers off each pontoon. The prongs however are bent together so the gap between them at the ends is narrow but widens out significantly as you sail between them. Once you are in then you can easily turn a boat round. It's very sheltered compared to Arklow, Dun leary or Port Edgar.

You have to pay for shore power. Cards cost 5 Euros. I asked Nicky if the one from Dun Laoghaire would work. "Oh yes, but I shouldn't tell you that! Sure it'll work grand". The problem is though that Dun Laoghaire got our money for the card and Kilmore Quay will supply the lecky. I can see his point. It's all immaterial however, as there was enough credit left on the shore power box to supply South Queensferry for a week. Wi-fi is free so that is a big bonus. They have diesel here also - which is good as ours is being depleted at an astonishing rate with the heating on. Peter in the office explained the problems of filling desiel cans from his big tank in anything over a force 6 from the south west. The lid is positioned exactly to get maximum lift from the wind accelerating over the harbour wall and tank is then dragged across the road and into the blue waters of the harbour. We won't be getting any diesel 'till Tuesday then!

Wednesday afternoon was spent doing some more boat fixing and in particular the annoying leak from the window over the fridge and the increasing rapid flow of water down the keel stepped mast. Both are now in good shape. Amazing what you can do with a bit of Duct tape. That is - if you don't kick it overboard. It doesnt work as well after 15 minutes in the water. Another visit to the chandlers to get a gas refill and some other bits left my credit card account 200 Euros lighter. On the bright side, that gas bottle lasted around 3 weeks which was 2 weeks longer than the last one I got from the Bosuns locker. Methinks there may have been water in it.

Wendesday evening we entertained John and Sue from Ellan Vannin and also Adrianne and Anders who were heading the other way towards Cardiff. They had lived in Dinas Powis so it was good to talk about old times.

On Tuesday I had missed my daily ration of Guinness as it was too wet to walk up the pub. Panicking in case I died, on Wednesday evening we strolled up to the pub up the road. Surprising it wasnt raining. All the midges that hatched in Kilmore Quay that evening were quickly transported to Scotland. The pub was called Kehoes. Nice Guinness, nice food and a nice atmosphere. I can sense this place may be a competitor in the best pub in the world competition that I am privately compiling. For the Tappit Hen in Dunblane - the pressure is suddenly on. It does have a few annoying traits - associated with coming into the 21st Century - such as Football on Sky TV and Recently Invented Traditional Creamy Pisspoor Irish Ale. Patricia sorted us out with a table and then continued to move people from table to table as even bigger groups of people came in. We left after the Germany v Turkey game for a moist walk back to the boat.

Looks like we will have plenty of time to see around the place and Wexford is only a bus ride away.

Wednesday 25th June, Kilmore Quay

Is anyone actually reading this rubbish? Our daughter Ceri who is sunning herself in Singapore (although she claims she is working out there) reckons it reads more like the west coast of Scotland  restaurant guide. Must do something about it then! As it happens I picked up a book from the swap box in the Marina yesterday that I have been looking for, for ages and it has inspired me to be a bit more creative in my ramblings. So there’s an idea then. Can anyone guess the title of the book? I will try and use various lines and anecdotes from the book over the next few weeks. You’ve got until Portugal to guess. First prize is a week on the boat with us. Second prize is two weeks.

On a serious note, is anyone reading this? If you are, can you post a comment at the bottom of this page to let me know there is a world out there.

 

It’s now Wednesday lunchtime and despite the sun and blue sky Global Cooling has definitely set in. Anyone who honestly believes this planet is heating up must be on magic mushrooms or some other sensory enhancer. It’s not exactly baltic here in southern Ireland but it is meant to be summer. We got into Kilmore Quay on Monday in the one day weather window that I had spotted. Sure enough Tuesday brought more wind and by evening was blowing a good F6-7. The forecast for the week ahead is F5-6 SW (the way we want to go) each day up until at least Sunday –so it’s a good job Kilmore Quay is a nice place to be. This however probably means we will miss Gordon in Crosshaven.

I can’t believe how expensive things are over here. For “things” read “alcohol”. Pam’s wine is typically 6-7 Euros in the pub and the beer in the supermarkets is a good 50% higher than home. Ok the pound has gone down against the Euro but not that much. Maybe it will get cheaper as we get further away from Dublin. Ireland is an expensive country.

We spent Tuesday afternoon fixing boat things – like varnishing the drinks cabinet. Found the local chandlery. I always thought Bosun’s locker in Port Edgar was the pinnacle of the art of extracting as much cash from poor retired yachties with the vast range of goods on offer but this place is the bees knees (do bees have knees?). Shackles to hold the QE2 and every type of pump imaginable. Bought some gel coat repair stuff and a fender blower upper and we’ll be back today to hand over another x% of my pension to them. I’m eying up a spare bilge pump and the gas bottle ran out.

 

Went for a drink with John and Sue on Ellan Vannin early evening. Left around half past seven into a biblical deluge – oh no…they didn’t have horizontal rain did they? – now I remember why we are heading to Portugal. Spent the night listening to the wind getting back up to warp speed again. At least I got the berth right with the wind blowing from the front so the cockpit is screened. All in all though Kilmore Quay is a nice place to be. I’ll try and describe the place in the next post.

Monday 23rd June, Arklow to Kilmore Quay

Our target is to get down to somewhere not too far from Cork to pick Rob and Tom up for the Biscay crossing. The next stage of the trip however is a longish sail (9-10hrs) down round Carnsore Point to the south coast of Ireland. There are no good ports or anchorages (other than Rosslare - which is not protected to the north) and tides are 2-3 knts. The weather forecast was showing light southerly winds for monday then Easterly gales tuesday then F5-6 south westerlies for the rest of the week. Monday was therefore the day to go.

We set off at 8am Monday in light winds but were fighting 2knts of tide for the first 5 hours. The wind picked up to 12-14knts on the nose so it was just a case of motor sailing. As we got near Rosslare, the tide turned in our favour which helped us round the corner. It proved a bit lumpy with the wind over tide. Not sure what the inshore passage would be like in higher winds. Very similar to Ratray head by the look of it.

The last 2 hours of the trip was very pleasant with blue sky, 8knts on the beam and a slalom course around the 3 million lobster pots. Good job we didnt try this one in the dark.

The entrance to Kilmore Quay is portrayed in the pilot book as very tricky - similar to Dunbar but nowhere near as bad except for the rough water out by St Patrick's bridge. The marina was pretty empty so we had a choice of berths. We tied up at 5.30pm so that was a 9 1/2 hour motor sail. The rain and strong SE winds forecast for Monday night never materialised so we had really pleasant blue skies.

We met up with John and Sue from Ellan Vannin (see previous post). They were on their way down to Crosshaven in Cork to see the Clipper boats coming in. Their daughter had been the medic on the Glasgow boat and they knew Gordon Lawson. They told us the boats were due in on the 28th and would be there for a few days at least. That gives us an option to try and get there as well to go and look up Gordon.

Dave, from Arklow came down to meet us and we all went off up the pub opposite the church for a meal and the daily ration of Guinness.

The weather forecast for the rest of the week (ie right up to Sunday) is fresh to strong south westerlies so it looks like we may be here until then - still it looks a reasonable place with free wi-fi!!!!!!! - the first yet.

More to follow tomorrow with some pics of Kilmore Quay.

Sunday 22nd June

Well as predicted we are still in Arklow bouncing up and down on the pontoon - almost! Anyway before all that here are some of the pics we got on Saturday at Wicklow with the start of the Round Ireland race.

Around 45 boats had entered the race, the largest a 100ft racing machine, a couple of Volvo 70s but with many in the 40-50ft range.

The race is all the way round the Island - I guess 600mile +.

The boats were rafted up in two places in Wicklow harbour. These were in the sheltered bit!! When we got there we found that the race had been postponed from the scheduled 4pm Saturday start until 10am the following day due to the F8-9 winds that were forecast. The weathermen were surprised at storms of this magnitude in June.

It poured down with rain as we walked round - good job Dave had brought an umbrella.

This photo shows the inner harbour area. Normally the fishing boats are on the south pier as well.

...and then on to the outer harbour wall. Pam is under the umbrella with Dave. Top left -behind the boats- is the Wicklow yacht clubhouse. This was packed with around 300+ crew and supporters left with 24 hours to fill. The bar was doing brisk businnes so we had to try the Guinness. Going up with Dave was very good as he knew a number of people so very interesting to get some of the inside information.

Due to the high winds on Sunday morning - the forecast F9 did appear - the race was delayed until mid-day sunday and then off they went. We saw them pass Arklow from the end of the pier with Leopard, the big Farr 30M covering at least twice the distance of the rest of the fleet. Good luck to all the racers. It would be bad enough to try and do a 600+ race but in those wind conditions I take my hat off to them. Having done last years North Sea race in a F8, which we knew would take less than 2 days, to do a race which will take the slower boats aroun 5-7 days is hard work.

If you want to keep a track of the race there is a good gps tracker on the internet. Google Round Ireland race and you'll find it.

In Arklow for the day (week?)

Well it seems we made the right choice with Plan B coming into Arklow. The evening was very pleasant although still a bit of wind from the south but overnight it turned to rain and wind from the east – and when I say rain I mean rain. Pouring down. It would have been a soggy and windy night to round Carnsore point to get to Kilmore Quay.

When we got in to Arklow and moored up we saw another Ronautica, a 340, moored up to a bouy. This is the first Ronautica we have seen outside of Spain or Port Edgar. Around 11ish on Saturday, Dave McNiven, the owner turned up on Grand Slam so we invited him on board for a coffee and a chat. Turns out he is the agent for Ro’s in Ireland and knows Jock Blair well having sailed at Port Edgar in his earlier years. Dave had been due to go racing on his Ro 340 but was on the way up to Wicklow to see the start of the Round Ireland race, due to go at 4.00pm Saturday. He invited us to join him so off we went.

It was a 20 mile drive. Wicklow was rather wet with rain still bucketing down. 45 yachts had entered the race and most were in the harbour all rafted up and going up and down in the heavy swell. Some nice boats! Most over 40 feet and some very fast racing machines. 4 or 5 were missing. They were still up in Dun Laoghaire – a couple of 70 foot Volvo round the world boats plus two others! We were told that one of the Volvo’s had just done the Atlantic crossing in 5 days and was hoping to do the round Ireland in 2 ½. The record is 3 ½.

When we got there we heard the start was delayed until 10am Sunday due to the bad forecast F8-9!!! Apparently the big boats don’t like beating so made the decision for the organisers. The sailing club bar was full with all the crews having a free day on their hands. Good job we chose Plan B. The atmosphere was great with lots of people wandering round looking at the boats and the Guinness in the club was it’s usual high standard.

 So we are now back in Arklow and with the forecast on Metcheck saying severe gales likely in Irish Sea on Sunday we wont be venturing out until at least Monday. I must say though that we are impressed with Arklow and the very sociable people here – and a big thanks to Dave for taking us up to Wicklow for a “must see visit”.

Friday 20th June, Dun Laoghaire to Arklow

After being stuck in Dun Leary (eaiser way to spell it!) on Thursday due to the high winds and being bashed around by all the wash from the passing boats, we were glad to get out of the place. It looked like we had a weather window of around 24 hours to get down to Kilmore Quay - down to the bottom corner and turn right. The forecast was strong easterlies by mid morning Saturday with very light winds on Friday.

We waited for the tide to change in our favour and left around lunch time to get down to near Rosslare and then anchor for six hours to wait out the tide and then make it round the corner. The first hour was great with 12knts on the beam. Unfortunately it didnt last long. The wind died then went on the nose and then increased to 20knts! The forecast did have the wind going south but force 1 or 2. Within an hour the sea was the usual 1m short chop and we were bouncing up and down motor saililng at around 4 knts through the water. The spring tide was a good 2-3 knts in our favour so at least we were making progress. After another hour we decided on plan B and headed into Arklow as there were only the two of us now Alan and Murray had abondoned ship.

We had originally planned to give Arklow a miss as it was near to Wicklow where the round Ireland race was about to start and we thought they might be busy. As it turned out there was lots of space and we got on the end of the long pontoon outside of the marina. Looks a nice place. The wind then dropped to F1-2!!!

More on Arklow in the next post.